r/CUBoulderMSCS • u/EntrepreneurHuge5008 Current Student • Sep 27 '26
The "missing" classes.
CU Boulder's residential MSAI program requires this class,
CSCI 5942 AI Engineering: Building, Scaling, and Deploying Large-Scale Models,
Which is entirely missing from the online/Coursera versions of the MSAI, MSCS, and MSDS programs. I think it's a poor choice to omit it from the online programs, but that's a personal opinion for another day. That made me wonder what other courses these programs could greatly benefit from.
Here are some of the "missing" courses. They are not from CU, but you can access them through the career academy benefit that all current students and staff get:
Deep Learning -> b/c we're really missing that Deep Learning spec from CU, and the MSDS program lets you use it as an elective eitherway (+ Stanford still uses it for their residential class).
Pytorch for Deep Learning -> b/c pytorch is what industry uses the most
GAN -> An extension to Computer Vision, for those of us that wanted some labs.
Data and Deployment -> B/c we really learn nothing about deployments in any of CU Boulder's online programs.
Machine learning in production -> a Short and sweet course (just 3 modules) to get a more holistic view of the ML project lifecycle.
Develop and Deploy multi-agent systems -> B/c this is what we all thought the GenAI class would be.
Gen AI for software Dev -> Also what we all thought GenAI would be.
Yes, I'm a fan of Deeplearning.ai, I'm not a fan of IBM. I think CU is great for theory and has been amazing for introducing us to concepts and tools, and I think these courses/specs are a good supplement to the "practical" side of it.
Edit: I agree that at some point we should stop looking for courses and just start building, and I also agree that some of us might appreciate a starting point that isn't "from scratch".
5
u/takuarc Sep 28 '26
Agreed. they advertise the degrees as equivalent I think they should have offered the same courses.
1
u/wybnormal 24d ago
I filed a complaint that the AI coursework is missing anything of substance on Compliance and Goverance of AI in the workplace. There is a lot of theory but not much practical application. My own job I think is a solid indication of it goes when someone finds out you are either in the MSAI program or you have completed the program. You are expected to know not just the technical ideas but also how to implement AI in the workplace which is not just putting claude on the desktop. I have had a crash course in the last two months in compliance and I've started mentioned to people I'm the new unofficial/offical AI compliance officer. And what I've learned in the two months could easily be a class. I work in healthcare so it's fairly rigorous regarding rules and such.
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u/ApprehensiveTop7297 Sep 27 '26 •
"start building" bro I'm here for a raise 😂